Steven "Kelly" Grayson

After 15 years in the emergency services field, Steven “Kelly” Grayson has seen it all. Lucky for us, he loves to write about all he’s seen. Author of two memoirs and the popular blog A Day in the Life of An Ambulance Driver, Mr. Grayson also shares his experiences by training future EMTs.

Find out all about this premier paramedic’s “groupies” (yes, he swears they exist!), the strangest call he’s ever taken and his wish for paramedics everywhere.

You describe yourself as “a trauma-fighting superhero.” Is your role as an ambulance driver really that exciting?

I am a trauma fighting superhero, saving lives and stamping out disease and pestilence every shift. Well, at least part of the shift. The other 90 percent is spent giving barely sick people rides to an ER they don’t need to be in, for medical treatments they don’t need, for ailments that will usually heal by themselves if they’d just take a Tylenol and toughen up.

The company I work for also handles all the 911 calls, so we have a decent mix of emergency calls. EMS is just like firefighting or law enforcement; every shift is hours of tedium and boring routine, interspersed with occasional moments of controlled panic.

Being a trauma fighting superhero does have its perks, though. We even have groupies. Unfortunately, those groupies are usually little old ladies with emphysema. They can’t get enough of us.

You also reference your “multi-pocketed EMS pants,” which, of course, got us interested… what do you carry in all those pockets?

My “action adventure pants” carry the tools of my trade. In my right thigh pocket, I carry an EMS field guide that rarely gets used but still gets carried as my personal security blanket. Mainly I carry it for the Spanish translator that keeps me from saying things like, “Does my chest hurt when you breathe?”

Also clipped in that right thigh pocket is an assisted-opening pocket knife, a pair of trauma shears and a couple of pens.

In the left thigh pocket, I carry a Critical Care Transport field guide full of useful formulas and protocols for my critical care transfers. I also carry a couple of extra pairs of gloves in that pocket. I carry my station and truck keys on my belt, along with a tactical flashlight, pager and narcotics pouch.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve witnessed while on the clock?

The strangest call would have to be the double fatality ostrich attack. A rooster ostrich attacked and killed an elderly couple. It’s amazing how much trauma a bird like that can do. It has to be seen to be believed.

The second strangest call was a homicide, in which an elderly trapper was beaten to death on Christmas Eve with a frozen raccoon. You don’t run many calls where a frozen critter was the murder weapon.

Do you think your book En Route: A Paramedic’s Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between, will inspire people to become paramedics … or will it scare them off?

I’d hope it does both. I wrote it to be an authentic, uncensored look at emergency medical services. There are far too many of those “Look at me, I’m a hero!” books in the EMS and public safety genre, and I definitely didn’t want to write one of those. I’d hope that the book dissuades people with hero complexes and adrenaline junkies from seeking EMS as a career, and it attracts the sort of people who genuinely want to help others.

If you could grant one wish for ambulance drivers everywhere, what would that be?

I’d put an end to EMS system abuse. It would be nice if everyone who called us actually NEEDED an ambulance, but sadly, they’re only a small fraction of our transports. But since I don’t think we’ll ever see an end to system abuse, I’ll just wish for free Slurpees for every EMT, and that motorists would just pull to the right and slow down when they hear our sirens. That’d be swell, too.